


Soft Flimsi Kiss

by whiplashcrash



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bird inspired me and I wrote it in 40 minutes I was so hyped, Headcanons for messy Kallus, Kallus is also overworking himself because I love that trope, M/M, Sleepy Kallus and caf thief Zeb collide, THE ART omg my heart Bird you are so amazing, sorry ya'll but no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25224562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplashcrash/pseuds/whiplashcrash
Summary: Aside from seeking out the disaster that is Kallus, Zeb isn't only looking for where Kallus keeps hiding all those mugs. Looking out for Kallus is harder than he thought, but it's so worth it. It's always worth it.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
Comments: 9
Kudos: 92





	Soft Flimsi Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Because Bird and I were just talking about Kallus and the idea for a first kiss came up and then WHOOPS my hand slipped all of a sudden there is FIC, so here it is, with only minor revision.

Zeb knew Kallus well enough to pick up on what the state of Kallus’s desk meant.

To others, the impossible chaos had no other meaning than cause for a joke or a reprimand from Draven from time to time, but Zeb knew when he waltzed into the Rebellion’s intelligence offices in the temple that Kallus was struggling.

When close to a breakthrough, Zeb saw him moving quickly, sorting through piles and sifting flimsi to scan and upload to datapad folders, marking up the sheets with color and handwriting so terrible it rivaled Zeb’s own sloppy scrawl. When Kallus was stuck, he stared at the same place on the same page of whatever it was he was supposed to be reading. Eyes unfocused and mind a thousand light years away, Kallus’s concentration would be shot to pieces, and Zeb would see his desk nearly empty.

But that night, Kallus’s desk and the surrounding floor were a downright mess. His hair was rumpled by his fingers twisting their way into it and pulling on the loose red-blond locks and his eyes were wide as Kallus tore through page after page, seeing everything but retaining not one piece of aurebesh in his mind.

Kallus’s panicked face said it all. When Zeb got closer, he heard a whine of frustration from Kallus’s throat, one the Lasat suspected Kallus would never know he let loose, and it wasn’t like Zeb would tell him.

When he grunted in frustration, Kallus let his head slip from where it was held up by his hands, and his forehead hit the desk in between his elbows with a loud and painful sounding:  _ thunk! _

Zeb flinched. While  _ these _ nights didn’t happen often, Kallus had been hitting dead ends for days now, and his obvious frustration built up enough to visibly and audibly eat at him.

“Karabast, what’re you doing to yourself, Kal?”

Kallus looked up and pushed back his hair, hair he hadn’t cut since leaving the Empire, Zeb noticed, only for it to fall back into his face again. “Zeb,” Kallus said, his surprise evident. “What’re you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m here, Kallus. Look at yourself!”

“I’m fine,” Kallus snapped, reaching for his big bright green mug only for Zeb to pull it from his hands.

“No. No more caf. You’re not even keeping your eyes open with the stuff.”

Kallus scoffed, and reached for a second mug, which Zeb took, and then a third, which to Zeb’s relief, was empty. “Rude, that’s what you are. I’m trying to work.”

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to sleep. It’s hard to do that when I’m worried you’re going to drink yourself into a kriffing heart attack, you idiot,” Zeb snapped.

“I’ve told you before,” Kallus snapped back, reaching and failing to recapture either of his mugs of caf. “Don’t worry about me.”

Zeb scoffed. “Someone has to.”

“No one said it has to be you,” Kallus snapped.

Undeterred, Zeb kept eye contact with Kallus the entire time in case somehow he managed to pull out yet another mug, and marched over to the window. As if to challenge Kallus to stop him, Zeb tilted his head, and the mugs as a preview, before dumping both mugs out until there was nothing left in either of them besides the trickling remains of Kallus’s choice of poison. “Yeah? Well I say it does.”

Kallus cried out and stood up from his seat, even if he couldn’t undo Zeb’s dramatic way of making a point. “Kriffing beast! That was good caf!”

Zeb rolled his eyes and returned both mugs to Kallus’s desk. “You’re leaving with me. Now. Not negotiable.”

Scoffing and making a face much like an irritated teenager, Kallus looked more like Ezra or Sabine than he did the full-grown man who ought to’ve known better than to pitch a fit. “I’ll have you know my desk is a mess. I can’t possibly leave with you now.”

Ignoring the pang at the reminder of either of the youngest Ghost crew members he hadn’t seen since Lothal, Zeb scowled. “Fine, then I’m cleaning up your kriffing desk and when you come back tomorrow, after you’ve taken a trip to the ‘fresher and slept more than seven hours, and put something in your stomach besides caf, it’ll be nice and clean for you.”

“Garazeb,” Kallus groaned, face in his hand. “Be reasonable.”

“I am,” Zeb insisted. “You’re the one who’s hellbent on tearing himself to shreds.”

“I am doing no such thing!” Kallus barked.

“Oh yeah?” Zeb asked, looking up from his furious lifting and shuffling of stacks of whatever the kriff was on Kallus’s desk to meet his eyes. “I don’t need to lose another part of my family. Not now. Not ever if I can help it, but definitely not if I can stop it. And this? You? I can stop you from hurting yourself. And you are hurting yourself, Kallus. So shut up and let me help you, okay?”

Kallus didn’t say anything as Zeb continued to work. At one point he awkwardly returned to his chair and wheeled back more or less quietly, leaning forwards to bury his face in his hands. Hiding bloodshot eyes and dark streaks under the terrible red webs within them, Kallus almost looked human again, Zeb thought. 

Apparently Kallus didn’t have much fight left in him, though, because he didn’t say so much as a peep when Zeb most likely mixed up the piles and knocked over a few more empty mugs in his efforts to hastily “tidy up” Kallus’s working disaster.

“Alright, that’ll have to do for now,” Zeb said, well aware it wasn’t too much better, but not nearly as horrible as it had been when he first walked in.

Kallus didn’t move.

“Hey,” Zeb said, voice softened as he reached over to place a hand on Kallus’s back. “Kal, you alright?”

Kallus didn’t move for a moment and nodded slowly. With a deep breath in through his nose, Kallus looked up at Zeb, either unaware or unbothered by the impressions of his leatheris fingerless gloves in the reddened skin of his face. Zeb didn’t laugh, although the markings reminded him of his own stripes.

“Yes,” Kallus mumbled.

Now, Zeb saw, Kallus couldn’t hide his sleepiness. The fight he’d put up against Zeb’s attempts to help, if his frustrating arguments could even be called that, had been weak at best. Suspecting it drained Kallus of what little energy he’d managed to summon, Zeb kneeled in front of the chair and reached one hand up to hold Kallus’s side, and the other to clasp Kallus’s forearm.

“Up you go, Kal,” Zeb said, and with a slump forwards into Zeb’s arms, Kallus buried his face in Zeb’s chest and sighed.

“Thanks,” He managed, though if the slurring was anything to go by, Kallus would not be grateful for much longer. Kallus’s usually quaint and put-together speech was nowhere to be found, and the rich silky sound of his voice was replaced by a feeble crack. No less charming but not likely the image Kallus wanted anyone to have of him. Zeb suspected he was not an exception to that particular rule either.

He laughed, helping Kallus stand more or less upright, unable to resist the temptation of his own fingers making their way up the side of Kallus’s face and claws scratching gently under his hair at his scalp. The soothing motion was something Zeb knew Kallus enjoyed from prior experience, and if the not so subtle lean into Zeb’s hand indicated anything, it was that sleepy Kallus really enjoyed it.

“You’re welcome Kal,” Zeb said, chuckling at the sight of Kallus’s blissed out expression

A sleepy smile and half-lidded brown eyes just for Zeb to see were soft in the ways Kallus’s hair was to the touch. Freed of his rigid Imperial upbringing, if he shook his head in a breeze, both his longer hair and hidden feelings would be tumbling out of the prison Kallus built in his own mind.

Without the blockage of his inhibitions, Kallus full on grinned, leaned forwards, and gasped when Zeb met him halfway, their mouths meeting despite the clink of a mug hitting the desk’s surface, or the slide of that stack of flimsy over the formerly cleaned off section, reburying the mug and any dreams Kallus had of caf, or anything besides the feeling of Zeb’s lips on his.

**Author's Note:**

> There is ANOTHER gorgeous fic inspired by the art and it gave me some real feelings, ya'll should read it, I'll link it as soon as it's published :)


End file.
